


Nine Days' Wonder

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F, Fem!John - Freeform, Femlock, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gender or Sex Swap, Happy Ending, Secret Admirer, Valentine's Day, a bit of mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13590444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Sherlock receives a series of gifts from a secret admirer for Valentine's Day.Fem!Johnlock. Friends to Lovers. Bit of a domestic puzzle. Rated for the final chapter.





	1. Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I can't tell you the shock it was to Mrs. Hargraves, and a nine days' wonder in the village._  
>  Miss Marple in _The Tuesday Club Murders_ by Agatha Christie (1933).

“Hallo, hallo, hallo. What’s all this?”

John greeted the fountain bouquet of blue-violet blooms with a grin.

How could she not?

Such a burst of colour on a frosty, grey February morning!

“They’re gorgeous!”

“Do you think so?” said Sherlock. She was stretched along the sofa in pyjamas and dressing gown, reading a journal.

“Of course, they are! Lilies?”

“And you call my knowledge of botany ‘variable.’ They are orchids, John.”

“From?”

“It’s anonymous.”

“No card?”

Sherlock waved a hand. “See for yourself.”

John plucked the heart-shaped card from the bouquet. “’With secret admiration?!’” she read. “Sherlock Holmes has a secret admirer! Bit early. Valentine’s Day isn’t for another week or so. Who are they from?”

“Is there an echo?” snapped Sherlock. “It’s anonymous.”

“You haven’t deduced it?”

“Boring.”

John frowned. “It wasn’t me. Grateful client?”

“Possibly.”

“They’d have to be a wealthy grateful client. Orchids are not cheap. And this many, this beautiful, they’d have cost a mint. But if it’s a client, then why the secrecy?” John studied the note. “Woman’s handwriting?”

“Shop girl. Written in the same hand as the address on the delivery envelope.”

“Ah.” John rubbed the back of her neck. “Do you think it’s Moriarty?”

“Why would Moriarty send flowers?”

“Why does Moriarty do anything?” John peered into the bouquet. “Maybe there are listening devices inside. Or a bomb.”

“I checked. No.” Sherlock spoke the last word with undisguised disappointment.

“Ah, well. Maybe next time,” John said with an amused smile. “For now, I shall just live vicariously through you and enjoy the lovely addition to the décor.”

“Just tea for me, thanks,” said Sherlock. “And toast. And an egg, if you’re making one for yourself.”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted breakfast, Sherlock.”

“It doesn’t mean I didn’t hear it,” said Sherlock, looking at John hopefully.

John shuffled into the kitchen, grumbling, “For the record, I like those hothouse flowers better.”

* * *

That night, John laid in bed, wondering.

Who had sent Sherlock those flowers?

Was it a gesture of romantic interest? Or simple gratitude? Or something more sinister?

Was Sherlock’s lack of curiosity genuine? Or an act?

Did Sherlock Holmes _do_ Valentine’s Day?

Until this morning, John would have said that all signs pointed to ‘no,’ but now she wasn’t so certain.

Damn.

Just when she thought that they might be, well, becoming _very_ good friends.

In the past month, she and Sherlock had shared two exchanges of significant eye contact. Of course, one of those exchanges had turned out to be Sherlock deducing John’s new toothbrush and her late night at the pub with Stamford.

But still.

They’d shared a year of living and solving crimes and together. Sherlock was rare. Brilliant. Gorgeous. Much like the flowers adorning the kitchen table downstairs.

John, if she’d allowed herself, could have become quite smitten with her flatmate.

Secret admiration. Yes, that was a good term for it.

But, now, apparently, John wasn’t the only one!

Should she be jealous?

Or concerned?

Sherlock had a lot of enemies.

But only one friend.

Or so she claimed.

But now.

 _This_ was why John hadn’t permitted herself to dwell on the romantic possibilities with Sherlock!

Sherlock had stated quite plainly on the second day that they’d met that relationships were not her area, and as far as John knew, Sherlock hadn’t gone on a date or anything of the sort since then. No mention of exes either.

This secret admiration was unwanted and unrequited.

Sherlock Holmes did not _do_ Valentine’s Day.

But those flowers! They were exquisite.

Had they ever had flowers in the flat? John searched her memory. No, there had never been cut flowers of any kind, and the only plant that had ever made an appearance was a Christmas cactus that had been a gift for John from that the staff at the surgery. Sherlock had accidently murdered it in one of her experiments over the holidays, resulting in one of the more splendid rows of their association.

No, there had never been flowers like those, and in a way, they reminded John of Sherlock, something about Sherlock.

What?

Ah.

John fell asleep smiling, thinking about sweet-smelling orchids and the blue of Sherlock’s scarf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The best part of these type of fics is shopping for gifts for fictional characters. The flowers are based on this [Ocean Breeze Bouquet](https://www.1800flowers.com/farm-fresh-ocean-breeze-orchids-159733?categoryId=400192483).


	2. Chocolates

John was still smiling when she bid the orchids good-bye the next morning.

Sherlock had not been about when John had left for the surgery, but John found her hunched over her acid-charred lab bench when she returned for lunch.

The orchids now sat on the desk by the window. A box, large, flat, red, heart-shaped with a quilted lid, had taken their place on the kitchen table.

“More secret admiration?” John asked.

Sherlock grunted assent, but her eyes were fixed on the toil and trouble brewing in the tall beaker before her.

“Same message, ‘With secret admiration,’” said John, taking up the heart-shaped card, “but this one is typed. Is it really typed? Or just made to look like that?”

Sherlock grunted, something which might have been ‘I don’t know.’ Or possibly ‘I don’t care.’

“If this is a genuine typed note, Sherlock, then that narrows the field of possibilities considerably. Who has access to a typewriter these days?” John hummed and glanced at the box. “Have you tried them?”

“No.”

“May I?”

Sherlock snorted and waved a hand.

John' lifted the lid.

“Oh, my!” Each dark brown mound was streaked with cream-coloured stripes and nested in circle of gold crinkled paper. The aroma was decadent, luxurious. John’s stomach rumbled. “Are they,” she sniffed, “coffee? Nut?”

“Walnut.”

“Oh, ho!” breathed John, throwing back her head and closing her eyes. She replaced the lid quickly and walked past Sherlock to the bread bin.

“John?”

“Tempting, oh, so tempting. But they’re for your enjoyment.” John began to make herself a sandwich.

“I don’t even like walnuts.”

“Don’t you? God, I love ‘em. Thank you, but, no, they’re yours, and it would be quite rude to take the first one, anyway.” John turned sharply. “Oh, wait, Sherlock, do you think they’re poisoned?!”

Sherlock’s eyebrows rose. “Moriarty.” She tilted her head, as if considering, then conceded, “Possibly. ‘Poisoned chocolates’ are classically evil.”

John’s face crumpled. “She ruins everything!” She took out her frustration on her ham and cheese with tomato.

“I could test them,” said Sherlock.

“You’d have to test all of them. And it could be an untraceable poison,” mumbled John as she chewed. “Or a drug. Maybe she’s planning to incapacitate you, then torture you.”

“Or kidnap you,” added Sherlock, ruefully.

“Yeah.” John wolfed down her sandwich. “Well, I’ve got to head back.” She patted Sherlock on the back as she returned to the sitting room. “You’re really not curious? I mean, you’re not going to—?” John snapped the fingers of both hands repeatedly.

“Perhaps. But later. I am more interested in—”

She pointed to the beaker, which chose that very moment to commence spewing its contents into the air.

“Bye!” called John as she fled down the stairs.

* * *

That night, John fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but when she woke up, it was still dark.

Very dark.

Those wee hours of the morning when logic and reason and all the things Sherlock touted were at their thinnest.

Moriarty.

The chocolates were poisoned, drugged.

Or worse!

John tread on cat-feet to her desk and retrieved her gun. She slipped it under her pillow.

Just in case.

The typed note. It was significant. And anyone who knew two hundred forty-three types of tobacco ash, would certainly know something about typewriters!

John knew nothing about typewriters.

* * *

_Knock, knock!_

Christ.

John looked at her watch, then remembered, for the hundredth time, that she’d lost her watch, her good watch, when she’d fallen into the Thames two weeks ago chasing after Sherlock who had been chasing after some fleet-footed villains.

John checked her mobile.

Four o’clock in the morning.

Case.

She groaned just as a second chorus of knocking, longer and louder, commenced.

“Yeah?”

Sherlock held up a half a dark-brown mound, a cross-section of its nut-and-cake centre on display.

“Not poison,” she mumbled, chewing and grimacing. “I still don’t like walnuts.”

“You’ve been testing them.”

Sherlock nodded. “All of them. They’re all yours, if you still wanted them.”

John laughed and took the half-eaten chocolate. She hummed and chewed. “They’ll make a fine breakfast. Coffee?”

Sherlock picked her teeth with her finger and said, “Just tea for me, thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chocolates are inspired by the [Coffee and Walnut Cake Selector](http://www.hotelchocolat.com/uk/coffee-walnut-cake-chocolate.html#start=11) of HotelChocolat.


	3. Perfume

John woke to the soft, sweet strains of Sherlock’s violin. She cracked one eye. Sherlock was waltzing back and forth, in her dressing gown, barefoot.

It was, John supposed, a vestige of her medical school and Army days, this ability to fall asleep in any position at any hour of the day regardless of the amount or type of stimulant she’d consumed. After a dark-hours breakfast of coffee and chocolates, John hadn’t wanted to return to bed. She’d curled on the sofa, ostensibly to read, but the book had, no doubt, crawled underneath, fell behind, or burrowed between the cushions as soon as John dozed.

John let her eyelid droop and listened.

How marvelous to possess such skill that an observer might be forgiven for thinking it was magic! To conjure such beauty from one’s own hands and bits of wood and string!

“S’gorgeous,” murmured John.

“Thank you.”

“What is it?”

John knew nothing of classical music, save what Sherlock had taught her over the past year.

“ _Lieder ohn Worte_.”

John frowned and sat up. “But wasn’t that the sad one? About the gondola?”

“Mendelssohn wrote quite a few.”

“Ah,” said John, then she caught sight of a gift bag on the kitchen table. “Another one?!” she exclaimed as she bolted upright.

“Yes. While you were sleeping.”

A short wide rectangular bottle filled with amber liquid sat beside the bag and the heart-shaped card. Sealed with a handsome stopper, it resembled an antique glass flask full of brandy.

John approached. The card was the same as the previous day’s, heart-shaped and ‘with secret admiration’ typed.

John inspected the bottle. “Is it perfume or liquor?”

“How very observant, John,” said Sherlock, rolling her eyes. “The former.” Casting bow aside, she folded herself into her armchair and hugged her violin to her chest. Then she began to pluck idly at it.

John returned the bottle to the table and frowned. She took two steps away and pointed an accusatory finger. “ _That_ is a man’s doing, Sherlock.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Perfume is an intimate gift. You have to know someone very well to know what kind of perfume they’d like. How many women know you like that? Moriarty. Me. Mrs. Hudson, perhaps.”

Or?

Oh, God.

“Mycroft?” Sherlock scoffed. “You think my sister has ‘secret admiration’ for me and is sending me gifts?”

“Once you rule out the impossible,” John countered.

Sherlock smiled a small smile. “Well done, John. But it is not really Mycroft’s style.”

“A woman who admired you from afar wouldn’t take this kind of chance, the chance that you wouldn’t like the scent, but a man might presume that he knew you. Or that he knew what was best for you.”

“There are those who are neither one nor the other.”

John’s cheeks warmed. “Apologies. Very true. I still maintain that it is an intimate gift, unless it’s a weapon. Do you think it’s—?”

An especially discordant note rang out, then Sherlock gave a cry of frustration.

“Poisoned? Drugged? I can do a few simple tests here, but I am not going down to Barts and commandeering a laboratory until there’s more evidence than your paranoia, John!”

John glared at her. “I don’t understand why you aren’t more concerned, Sherlock. Do you even _do_ Valentine’s Day?!”

Sherlock snorted, then she stood and dropped her violin in the seat of her armchair. “Here’s to living dangerously,” she said as she strode purposefully to the bottle, unscrewed the lid, and sniffed. She tilted her head, then offered it to John. “Not nitroglycerin and If it’s poison, it’s more of the Christian Dior kind.”

John looked askance at the bottle, then she leaned in and sniffed.

Her eyes met Sherlock’s.

Sherlock’s eyebrow rose.

“Wow,” said John. She nodded approvingly.

Sherlock set the lid and the bottle back on the table and returned to armchair and violin.

John sniffed the bottle again. She smiled. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down at the table.

“It’s nice. Not your Gran’s knickers drawer or one of those hideous Lovecraftian monsters that take over the tube car during rush hour. It’s good, Sherlock. Almost masculine. Please, no gender lectures. It smells like, let’s see, a fruit. A sort of old fashioned fruit.”

“Are fruits old fashioned?” queried Sherlock.

“Fig,” said John. “And, uh, tobacco and leather and something rich. Like an animal. Musk?”

“Beaver.”

John stared. Sherlock Holmes didn’t make jokes using slang for female genitalia.

“Castoreum,” explained Sherlock. “From beavers.”

“Yeah, well, it smells like one of those old Victorian gentleman’s club that wouldn't admit you or I as members for love nor money.”

“You like it.”

“Yeah,” John admitted. “It isn’t something a young me would’ve worn, but, it’s something I might have worn, before,” she frowned, then added vaguely, “if I was then who I am now.”

Sherlock’s brow furrowed. “Before what?”

“Everything,” sighed John. “I used to wear perfume. I used to like it.” Then she took out her phone, pushed the bag and card aside, and snapped a photo of the bottle.

“John?”

“If you’re not interested, fine, but I want to know more about this bastard.”

“A case might come up.”

John shrugged. “Text me. Until then, I’ve got my own.” She covered the opening of the bottle with her finger, then turned it upside-down. Then she dabbed the scent on her wrists, sniffed, then smiled and nodded.

* * *

John collapsed into her armchair, her head in her hands.

“A whole day and all I know is that the bottle is old.”

“Louis Vuitton, 1920,” said Sherlock.

John looked up. “How?!”

“I posted a photo of it on a vintage perfume blog.”

“Of course. I am a dinosaur. Not one person in all the shops and stores I visited today recognised the scent.”

Sherlock shook her head. “Then it can only be—”

“Bespoke,” said John. “The bastard’s rich and he’s been thinking about this a long time.”

Sherlock’s pained expression broke John’s heart.

Throwing prudence and caution and a host of other virtues to the wind, John crawled forward until she was curled on the floor by Sherlock’s chair, the straight chair at her desk.

Sherlock looked down, and whatever she saw in John’s face made her eyes widened with alarm.

“I swear to God, Sherlock, if this bastard means you harm, he will have to kill me first,” vowed John.

Sherlock raised a hand and stroked John’s head.

It was, perhaps, the most tender gesture Sherlock had ever bestowed upon John, and John leaned into the touch, savouring it.

“It’s just a gift, John. Perhaps he doesn’t know how to _do_ Valentine’s Day, either.”

John nodded, then took a deep breath. “You’re not wearing the perfume.”

“I don’t wear perfume.”

John blinked. “Never?”

Sherlock shook her head.

“Ever?”

Sherlock shook her head again.

“What is he about then?!” John cried. “He’s not a very good stalker! It doesn’t make any sense!”

John’s head began to throb. She rubbed her temples. She’d smelled bottle after bottle and countless tiny strips. None of them were Sherlock’s perfume.

“You’re tired, John.”

“I’m worried about you, Sherlock.”

“Let me worry about me, John.”

The words were soft, gentle, but John felt them like a bludgeon. She fell back, clumsily, as if struck, then crawled to her feet.

“John…”

“Quite right. Good night, Sherlock.”

* * *

There was only one explanation for Sherlock’s casual manner.

She knew who it was.

But questions remained.

Did Sherlock _like_ this secret admiration and her secret admirer?

If Sherlock was, in fact, enjoying it, then she was far more stoic than John had imagined, than even John herself was about such things. At no time during the past three days had Sherlock seemed giddy. And wasn’t that the main part of falling in love and being, to be old-fashioned, courted in this way? The intoxication of it all?

Sherlock hadn’t displayed any heightened emotion. But perhaps she wouldn’t.

Was her reserve for John’s sake?

If she was putting on an act for John’s sake, it must be Moriarty.

Well, here was nothing for it, then.

John was a faithful companion, and like any faithful companion, she would do as bid.

Let Sherlock worry about Sherlock.

Stop wondering.

It was a long time before sleep overtook John, but just before she drifted off, she thought she heard the sad song about the gondola wafting up from the sitting room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John's perfume is inspired by Tabac Blanc by Roberta Andrade and the bottle is a 1920s-1930s Louis Vuitton bottle of Eau de Voyage that I saw on Ebay.


	4. Jewelry & Card

The next day, blessedly, brought a case that kept Sherlock and John busy from before dawn until almost midnight.

They worked as they always had, and when they spoke to each other, it was politely and civilly. John was cooperative when it came to the case, but there was no denying that a coolness had settled between them. Neither mentioned Sherlock’s Valentine gifts or their conversation of the previous evening.

John occupied herself with a soldier’s vigilance, and when she wasn’t chasing after Sherlock or listening to Sherlock’s deductions or following Sherlock’s thinly-veiled orders, she was scanning the environs for potentials threats and sizing up everyone they met as Sherlock’s possible paramour.

They returned to Baker Street weary.

“Tea?” offered John.

“Yes, please,” said Sherlock.

As John crossed into the kitchen, she spared a single glance for the small dark box and heart-shaped card on the table. Sherlock scooped them up and took them to her desk.

John set about making tea. She slowed her movements, seeking to pour all the tumult of her mind into the simple task.

The hinge of the box squeaked.

“Jewelry?” asked John, without looking up from the tin and mugs.

“Watch,” replied Sherlock.

John nodded. “Is there an inscription on the back?”

A pause.

“No.”

John nodded. “Good.”

“Why?”

“Because, well,” John laughed mirthlessly, “I should be horribly jealous if you had a fancy, new, engraved watch whilst mine was still decorating the bottom of the Thames.”

Out of the corner of her eye, John watched Sherlock walk to the bookshelves. When Sherlock returned to the desk, John saw that the black box had been placed beside the perfume bottle on the shelf in front of John’s books, which were mostly old medical textbooks and dog-eared paperback detective novels from the so-called Golden Age of Crime Writing.

“I don’t wear a watch,” said Sherlock.

John’s mouth dropped open. She stared at the wall.

Sherlock _didn’t_ wear a watch. She always had her mobile.

It was so all so bizarre!

John could bear no more. She deserted the tea with a mumbled apology and went straight to her bedroom.

* * *

Bull. Horns.

John took a deep breath and marched downstairs.

“Good morning, Sherlock.”

“It’s afternoon.”

“Listen, Sherlock, about this Valentine business. I want to know—"

“This one’s just a card.”

John moved behind Sherlock’s chair at the desk and looked over her shoulder. “Good Lord,” she whispered.

It was a sketch of a bee. The front read ‘Bee my Valentine’ in a curling hand.

“Anything on the back?”

“No.”

Sherlock turned the card over. The opposite side was completely blank.

“Envelope?” asked John.

Sherlock gestured to the red envelope. She turned it over. It was blank as well.

“Under the front door,” explained Sherlock.

“Hand delivered? But there’s no name. It mayn’t be for you, Sherlock. Perhaps it is for Mrs. Hudson. Or wrong address altogether.”

“Perhaps.”

“It doesn’t seem like you at all, frankly.”

“Bees fascinate me, John.”

“They do?! This is the first I’ve heard of it. I thought you liked locked room murders.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Bees come a close third.” She set the card aside and drew out her laptop and pulled up one of her bookmarks. “When I tire of London, I want to move here and raise bees.”

“What?!”

“Sussex.”

“Soon?”

“No, but I’ve put a down payment on this,” she pointed to the screen, “cottage. By the time I retire, it should be mine.”

John exhaled, then took up the card and shook her head.

“She knows more about you than I do.”

“Who?”

“Who else?”

“Do you like it?” asked Sherlock.

John shrugged. “Drawing’s nice, and I like a good pun as much as the next gal—”

“The cottage, John!”

“Oh.” John shifted her attention to the computer screen. “Yeah, lovely. I can’t imagine you tiring of London, though.”

Getting tired of London would mean tiring of, and ridding herself of, John.

“This whole business, Sherlock, is such a bloody wonder—”

“Is it, John? Is it such a bloody wonder that someone might have secret admiration for me?!”

“Christ, no, Sherlock, that’s—”

Sherlock slammed the laptop shut. “I have a case in Belarus.”

And with that, she was gone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The [Sherlock](https://secure.rotarywatches.com/en/the-rotary-collection/timepieces-watches/gs02424-21) watch is the one featured in Season 1. The card is my own invention.


	5. Lingerie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"No body," said Miss Marple firmly. "That's the thing that would stare you in the face, if there weren't such a lot of red herrings to draw you off the trail."_  
>  _The Tuesday Club Murders_ , Agatha Christie (1933).

Miss Marple.

John was curled on the sofa, pretending to read a detective novel, ignoring the silence of the flat, and thinking that if she had a fraction of Miss Marple’s acumen, she would have this whole puzzle untangled like a skein of fuzzy wool.

If John disregarded the stormy atmosphere, that is, the tempest raging in her heart, what was left? What were the facts?

Sherlock had received gifts for Valentine’s day from an anonymous party.

The orchids. Next, the chocolates. Then, the perfume. Then, the watch. Lastly, the card.

Flowers, chocolates, perfume, jewelry. Until the card, it was as if someone had been following, step by step, one of those silly magazine articles, usually entitled something along the lines of ‘Ten Perfect Gifts for Your Sweetheart this Valentine’s Day.’

John huffed. Her eyes were resting on a page that she had already read a dozen times, but her mind was whirring through the inventory once more.

The gifts might be perfect according to a magazine, but they were all wrong, too!

The orchids. Which were beautiful.

_Do you think so?_

Next, the chocolates. Which were delicious.

_I don’t like walnuts._

The perfume. Which was handsome.

_I don’t wear perfume._

The watch.

_I don’t wear a watch._

“All wrong for Sherlock Holmes,” John murmured as she flipped a page, “but perfect for John Watson.”

Oh, God.

The book slid from John’s lap. The room began to spin.

No. Impossible. Or only highly improbable?

Oh, God!

John had never seen any of the gifts delivered. They’d simply appeared.

The flowers might have been delivered. The first note might have been written by the shop girl, but the rest of the notes were typed.

Typed to disguise a handwriting, several handwritings actually, which John would immediately recognise.

John looked about the room.

There was nowhere a typewriter could be hidden.

She raced down the hall to Sherlock’s bedroom.

Wardrobe? No typewriter. Under the bed? No typewriter.

Sherlock’s bedroom was as sparse as a hermit’s cell.

There wasn’t anywhere else!

John sank. Luckily, she landed on the edge of Sherlock’s bed.

The notes.

_None of them had borne Sherlock’s name._

John had just assumed that expensive gifts, beautiful gifts, secret gifts, were for Sherlock, and Sherlock hadn’t corrected her.

John shivered.

It was like when Miss Marple said, ‘No body.’

John had been so distracted by the red herrings of her own jealousy and insecurity and so shackled by what seemed like abject stupidity that she had overlooked the most common-sense conclusion, what would, at any other time, have been staring her blankly, broadly, in the face.

_The gifts were not for Sherlock. They were for John._

John walked back down the hall, slowly, as if in a dream.

The flowers, John liked. To replace or atone for the cactus Sherlock had killed? The chocolates that John liked. The perfume that John liked, but didn’t even know she liked.

_The bastard’s rich, and he’s been thinking about this a long time._

Oh, God.

And then the watch!

_I should be horribly jealous if you had a fancy, new, engraved watch whilst mine was still decorating the bottom of the Thames._

John hadn’t even looked at the watch.

She floated into the sitting room in a daze and collided with Mrs. Hudson.

“I’m so sorry, my dear.” She held a flat red box, battered and stained, in her hands. “I don’t think Sherlock meant to put this in my bins. It’s so pretty. Lucky thing, I spotted it. The bins were to have been collected this morning, but I had a bit of a gathering last night, you know, just Mrs. Turner and some of the other landladies, and I simply forgot to set them out and, of course, the dustmen are so particular these days. If you don’t set them out just so, well, forget about it. It’s a bit knocked about, but I didn’t see it at first, I was putting out the bottles, you see.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Hudson.”

“Are you all right, my dear? You look at bit under the weather. Shall I bring up some soup later?”

“That’d be wonderful.”

Mrs. Hudson turned. When she reached the top of the stairs, John called out,

“Oh, Mrs. Hudson, do you, by any chance, have a typewriter?”

“You, too? Anytime, just like I told Sherlock. Though how she got working again after all these years, I’m certain I don’t know. It’s been a rusty heap collecting dust for ages!”

John stared at the red box long after Mrs. Hudson had gone. Then she set it on the kitchen table and went to the bookcase.

One step at a time.

‘Order and method’ was Hercules Poirot, not Miss Marple, but who cared at this point?! John felt more like a fish-eyed body in the library than a detective.

She opened the watch-box.

“Oh.”

Black leather strap. Roman numerals.

Classic. Elegant.

“It’s perfect,” said John to the empty room.

She removed the watch from the box and, holding her breath, turned it over.

_XXX_

_—SH_

For a quite long time, all John heard was her own blood pounding in her ears, a thundering, train-like rhythm broken only by the memory of Sherlock’s voice.

_Three kisses says it’s a romantic attachment._

_The expense of the phone says wife, not girlfriend._

“Oh, God,” breathed John.

John’s fingers did not seem to want to work. Fastening the watch around her wrist took a short eternity.

The card.

There were more direct ways of asking your flatmate if she’d like to retire with you to Sussex and keep bees, but John supposed by that point they had already passed through the looking glass.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

And then there was the red box.

John approached it cautiously, as if it were a wild animal.

She threw off the lid and hopped back.

White paper obscured the contents.

She gave two cries. One of frustration. One of disgust.

“Captain Watson!” she barked in her battlefield voice. “Pull yourself together!” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then she opened them and draw aside the paper.

And whistled a long wolf whistle.

Black silk.

John held up each of the two items in turn.

These were assuredly not for Sherlock.

The knickers were half an arse too big, and the bra cups were each half a breast too small.

John held them against her own body.

“Christ, somebody’s been looking.” She dropped the garments back in the box. “Now what? How do I redeem myself after I’ve behaved like a complete idiot? How do I make this right?”

John looked about the flat, as if orchids and perfume and a watch and a bee card and a pair of black silk knickers could somehow collectively give her an answer. Then her eyes lit upon the detective novel half-hidden under the sofa.

She should call Sherlock, explain everything and apologise. She should tell Sherlock exactly how she felt. That was the reasonable, responsible, respectful, mature way to handle the situation.

John looked at her phone. She scrolled through her contacts and hit a button.

“Hello?”

John was mildly surprised. She’d expected voicemail.

“It’s John. We need to talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John's lingerie is Agent Provocateur's [Felinda brief and bra](https://www.agentprovocateur.com/gb_en/felinda-big-brief-black).


	6. Valentine's Day

John crept down the hall. A few of the _gendarme_ looked at her askance, but no one stopped her or questioned her presence.

She listened.

She couldn’t understand French, but she spoke Sherlock fluently, and the rise in Sherlock’s voice meant that she was getting to the end of her deduction.

The timing had been perfect, then.

So was that wide mirror positioned directly opposite the door to the library.

A few more steps and Sherlock would see John in its reflection.

John smiled.

Sherlock’s eyes caught John’s in the mirror and lit with what John hoped was pleasant surprise.

Sherlock didn’t pause, though, not for a moment. In fact, her words seemed to flow more quickly and more musically until at last she came to what John recognised as the deductive crescendo. She punctuated her final words with a magician’s flourish of the hand, then a door in the shelved wall popped open and out tumbled a body rolled in an antique carpet. Every _gendarme_ in the room gasped, and a few even clapped.

A flurry of gratitude erupted in two languages. Sherlock nodded and shook hands and exchanged brief words, all the while making her way through the crowd to John.

“This is you,” she said when they were finally face to face. Her eyes were still shining, and a tiny smile tugged at her lips. “I thought it was Mycroft, worrying about me and being awful mother hen about it.”

“Mycroft found the case. Lestrade smoothed things over with the French police.”

“Because you asked them.”

John nodded. “And the timing was very, very good.”

“The case in Belarus was a complete dud. You knew that when I received the request from Paris, I would jump at it, without returning to London first.”

“Well, that’s what I would have done, and things were awkward at home, to say the least.”

Sherlock looked back at the doorway through which the police were buzzing to and fro. “Well done, John. Today is the fourteenth of February. You got me a locked-room, body-in-the-library murder for Valentine’s Day.”

John grinned. “And a card,” she added. She drew it out of her pocket and handed it to Sherlock. “And there’s something a little choice in white wines waiting back in the refrigerator in Baker Street. I think that’s the one ‘perfect gift’ you didn’t check off your list.”

“You don’t drink wine.”

“No, but you do, and if the white’s cold enough, I’ll have a sip or two.”

“Interesting. So is this,” she held up the card, “‘I’ll bee your Valentine.’”

“I’m shite at anything artistic, but I went snooping, I’m sorry, by the way, for that—”

“Don’t be. How do you think I found out your real name? And your birthday? And your blood type?” interjected Sherlock wryly.

“—and found your coloured pencils and thought if you had a go, why I could, too.”

Sherlock turned the card over. Her eyebrows rose.

“I’m shite at words, too. I mean, a blog update is different, but—”

Sherlock cut her off and read,

_“A gift to share this life with you,_

_adventure in coat wool, scarf blue,_

_a world of locks and keys._

_Today and when mysteries fall few,_

_I pledge my heart, my left hand to_

_the keeper of the bees.”_

“You wrote me a poem, a _rime couée_ , for Valentine’s Day.”

“Well, we are in Paris.”

“A murder, a poem, and a bottle wine. Perfect. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I think I’m done here,” said Sherlock awkwardly.

“It’s quite late. We could get a room or—”

“Let’s go home, John.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” She looked at her watch. “We’ll need to hurry. Apologies on the train?”

Sherlock nodded.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Sherlock, for hurting you, for being so bloody stupid.”

“You were right, John. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t _do_ Valentine’s Day. At least not properly. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth from the beginning. I didn’t know how to say it, and I thought that was the point of the gifts, that they would say it for me. I see now that I was horribly misinformed. And every day—”

“—it kept getting worse. I thought it was a man. Or Moriarty. All I knew for certain is that you knew who it was, and you weren’t concerned.”

“I wanted to tell you. I was, just, scared. When did the penny drop?”

“When I was reading an old book of detective stories.”                                                               

“Miss Marple?”

“Yes!” John cried. “How on earth—?”

“’We women detectives have to stick together, John,’” she said in spinsterly voice.

John laughed. “Speaking of shrewd old ladies, Mrs. Hudson fished the box with the knickers out of her bins and gave it to me.”

Sherlock flushed and looked away. She cast darting glances at John and picked at the wool of her coat.

“I get it, Sherlock. You aborted your mission, so to speak, and got rid of the incriminating evidence. Was it to be the last of the gifts?”

Sherlock nodded. “If everything went according to plan,” she said softly.

“—and if our landlady wasn’t such a terribly festive hostess, your scorched-earth policy would’ve worked.”

They looked at each other and spoke in unison.

“There’s always something.”

“There’s always something.”

One corner of John’s mouth rose.

“I like them, Sherlock.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? They aren’t what you usually—”

“No. They aren’t cotton or white or anything that might be called ‘serviceable’ by the armed forces of our nation, but they are quite,” John paused, “sexy and I imagine that I might feel quite sexy in them.”

Sherlock bit her lip to keep from grinning. “A hypothesis worthy of testing, John.”

John nodded, then she frowned. “Tomorrow?”

“We won’t arrive until after midnight. It will already be tomorrow. But, yes, I think a bit of rest is in order. Together?”

“Of course!” John snorted, then her face fell. “Unless?”

“No,” Sherlock reassured her. “No objections, to together or to rest, believe it or not.”

“Good.” She let her head fall back, then sighed wearily and said, “It has been such a nine days’ wonder, Sherlock.”

“Indeed, but, thankfully, it’s over.”

They travelled in silence until John remembered what she’d wanted to ask Sherlock.

“Tell me about the perfume.”

“Ah, well, as it turns out, the process requires a good deal of knowledge of chemistry, but also a certain amount of artistry. It bears some resemblance to musical composition, too, in language as well as theory. You start with the base notes…”

John closed her eyes.

“John?”

“I’m listening.”

John smiled as Sherlock’s hand covered hers.


	7. The Day After Valentine's Day (Rating: Teen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning in bed.

John woke for the second time to the heat of a warm gaze followed by the touch of warm, wet lips. She rolled backwards and opened her eyes.

Sherlock was divesting herself of clothing.

“You went out?”

“Shops.”

John was fully awake now. She sat up abruptly and cried, “You went to the shops?!”

“Croissants and strawberries.”

“My favourites! How did you deduce it?”

“John, did we not just establish that speculation is hazardous? I asked you.”

“When?!”

“Earlier.”

“I thought that was a dream!”

“You can be forgiven. It was rather fantastic,” said Sherlock with a smirk as she crawled towards John in bra and knickers and unbuttoned blouse.

John grinned. “Especially if it ended with you going to the shops!”

“That was the dénouement. I was referring to the climax, which was rather spectacular.”

They kissed. And kissed again.

Sherlock’s eyes raked down John’s body. “John, you look…”

“I feel…”

Sherlock trailed a finger along the edge of John’s black silk bra.

“You know, Sherlock, you have excellent taste in…”

Sherlock’s finger paused at John’s cleavage. “Yes?”

“Everything,” said John, breathlessly.

“Including bloggers,” replied Sherlock.

They kissed and kept on kissing. John wrapped her arms around Sherlock’s shoulders as Sherlock lowered her body to John’s.

“I know we have the rest of our lives to figure this out, Sherlock, but how about we start right now?”

“Capital plan,” said Sherlock.

“Like this?”

“Oh, _fuck_ , yes. When?”

“Hmm. Late. As late as possible.”

“After experiments?”

“But before violin. You’ve usually already retired.”

“You can always come upstairs and knock. Oh, God, that, _that_.”

“I shouldn’t wish to disturb your sleep. John, the scar?”

“Yes, whatever you’d like. Hmm. But if I were already in your bed, nude, perfumed, wet and waiting.”

“Well, in that case, chivalry be damned. May I?” Sherlock’s hands were at the clasp of John’s bra.

John nodded. In Sherlock’s hands, she whimpered, then gasped, then sighed.

“Based on one observation, I already know yours, John. Early morning.”

“Fuck, yes, rolling over and rutting. _Fuck_ , Sherlock!” John reached up and brought Sherlock’s mouth to her neck.

“So, if I stay up very late…,” murmured Sherlock against John’s skin.

“…and, _oh, oh, oh_ , I wake up very early…”

“…we just might…”

“…set the place, and each other, on fire—figuratively!”

“Unless there are candles,” added Sherlock.

“Do you like candles?”

“Yes.”

“Me, too. Oh, Sherlock.” There was a pleading urgency in John’s tone, and she gripped Sherlock’s hair by the roots and tugged.

“Oh, God, John. That, always, that.” moaned Sherlock hoarsely. Then she asked, “How?”

“Your thigh. You?”

“Your hand.”

“Show me?”

“Of course. No more wondering. Teaching is far more efficient and effective, and you such an— _ah-ah-ah_ —apt pupil.”

“These strawberries are lovely,” said John, between bites.

“And, given the number of fellow shoppers I had to subdue to acquire them, at an exceedingly reasonable price,” said Sherlock.

John laughed. “I think that’s the most domestic thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Well, I haven’t been to the shops since that body was discovered behind the milk.”

John hummed. “Day after Valentine’s Day. There were lots of cut-price chocolate hearts, too, I imagine.”

“Indeed, but none worthy of you.” Sherlock fell silent, her expression contemplative. “Sherlock Holmes doesn’t _do_ Valentine’s Day, John, but the day after Valentine’s Day…”

John hummed and looked about them: the breakfast tray, the mussed bed, the strewn lingerie.

“…you do exceedingly well, Sherlock. So perhaps today is the day we should observe.”

Sherlock nodded. She leaned forward and kissed John’s shoulder. “Let’s always celebrate the day _after_ Valentine’s Day.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
